IBM, one of the largest supporters of Open Source software, has decided to push the use of Firefox, the Open Source Web browser, to its 300,000 employees. The company already has approximately 10% of its workforce using Firefox; however, this new push to use Firefox is being led by the company's Chief Information Officer, Brian Truskowski. The company's help desk employees have been trained to work with common problems users encounter with the browser, as well as to answer questions on how to get the most out of it.

Truskowski says that the push to adopt Firefox is not going to stop at Web-surfing employees–all of IBM's internal applications are being certified to work on the browser. Truskowski also says that a main reason for the switch is a desire to work independently of proprietary technology, such as Microsoft's ActiveX scripting. Of course, money is also a factor. The company hopes to save money in the future by using Firefox and other Open Source software that will work in conjunction with it.

JOSHUA'S OPINION
This is exactly the type of coverage and support that Firefox needs. While the browser has passed the 50 million downloads mark (see our coverage), it is not gobbling up the marketshare like it did initially. If more companies like IBM push their employees to use Firefox at the office, there is a good chance that those employees will also use it at home. Word-of-mouth is the best way to spread the word on a product like Firefox.

One of the best features of IBM's adoption of Firefox is that the company is getting its help desk involved. I am sure that the Mozilla Foundation is happy about that.

I am also impressed with Truskowski's approach to software and adherence to standards. There are too many companies that do not care in the least about following the standards that have been decided upon by the community. While there may be valid reasons to bypass some standards in specific instances, I think that those are few and far between. Too often, standards-compliance is seen as too much work, but I maintain that even if the initial investment of time and energy is large, the savings on time, energy, frustration, and money over the long haul will certainly make up for it.

USER COMMENTS 31 comment(s)

Push is the wrong word… “Offered the opportunity”(10:32am EST Mon May 16 2005)I love Firefox too, but lets get the facts straight… IBM, is aknowleging the power and flexibility of Firefox, and “supports” the IBM staff that “wants” to use it… it is not being “PUSHED” onto them.

I want Firefox to become the norm, but if we “make” people switch, they will be hostile towards the new way.

Give users the chance to use Firefox, and they will discover for themselves, that it is vastly superior. - by JoeShmoeNetSurfer

migration continues(10:37am EST Mon May 16 2005)To those who have said Firefox was a long way from enterprise use, you can't get too much more enterprise than IBM. &#10

&#10 (Waiting for comment from Mr. J. Eric Smith himself…) &#10

&#10 It is also great to see companies (and how ironic to see IBM one of them) recognize MS's mistake giving ActiveX deep access to the OS (something Mr. Smith also sees). &#10

&#10 Firefox may indeed bring in some security issues as it penetrates the market, but they shouldn't be nearly the trouble to deal with as the “ActiveX–>Internet Explorer Welcome to the kernel, please do us over a barrel” vulnerabilities.&#10

&#10 Companies which lack the skilled IT staff the likes of Mr. Smith and home users deserve better.&#10

- by ToeKnee

Re: “Offered the Opportunity”(10:47am EST Mon May 16 2005)Hostility towards the new way?

Actually, most IE users will be happy to make the change (when they try it and see how much better it is), and I have never met a Firefox user who was not far more hostile towards his or her company which forces IE on people.

Also, IBM is already pushing Linux to other businesses virtually no employee will mind Firefox.

Just my two cents… - by JoeyG

Gradual Growth and Acceptance(11:12am EST Mon May 16 2005)I am very impressed with IBM's move to Firefox. I bet the Mozilla crew are happy about this. I totally agree with Joshua's opinion above. Firefox may bring vulnerabilities to the PC as time goes by, but their severity and life-span will be but a fraction of that as IE security holes. I've never received one pop-up or spyware since I've used Firefox. It's free and I'm very proud to use it. I'm going into CompuCollege this summer and when I end up helping other inexperienced users with their PC troubles, I will never hesitate to talk to them about Firefox! - by Jeremy

I love FireFox, but…(11:17am EST Mon May 16 2005)I love FireFox but am kind of worried, how long will it get support?, how long will it get patched? and what's going to happen once the mozilla people hired by Google release a Google Browser?

And how long before a “Google Web Browser/Explorer” comes out and everyone switches to it, leaving FireFox in the dust?

For now am enjoying FireFox, but am not sure it'll be around for long - by GoogleBrowserExplore

the hidden message (11:24am EST Mon May 16 2005)here is that the people stood up against the powers that be(thier bosses) and the bosses(which wouldn't be where they are without being dynamic with change and smart)decided to jump ahead of the curve and go for it.Kudos to all in this venture but really now..do they expect us to believe that they are “pushing” firefox?More like avoiding a coup and making it look like their idea.One day soon after other companies have adopted firefox, IBM execs will lay claim to the being the innovator,when in actuality the title belongs to us, the people.What I say to my clients about switching to firefox is very simple to understand,”remember windows 95? no pop ups spyware etc? - by Firefox pusher

Pushing(12:37pm EST Mon May 16 2005)Pushing, in the IT sense of the word, usually means distributing an applicaiton over the LAN. So everybody just calm down.

Let's look at something else quick: “all of IBM's internal applications are being certified to work on the browser”.

Although the FF fanboys would have us believe that the only thing you need to do is install Firefox on the PC, it turns out they're WRONG! (most of us knew that). Which is why FF has been out for this long before a major compay announced that they are going to use it across the board. Because it is a big decision with the potential for disaster if not managed properly.

That being said, good for FF. I use it at home and it works great on 99% of the sites out there.- by asdf

Changing over(12:57pm EST Mon May 16 2005)I use to use IE all the time, but since you can get all the nifty plug in's for FF, like the ones that let you view pages in IE (so I can check hotmail) Itís became my favorite browser. I wish I could convince my school to switch to it, or at least give you the option - by Tim Burns

Good Move(1:06pm EST Mon May 16 2005)Firefox is what competition to Microsoft is all about. I don't hate MS but I do try to choose the best products available. Firefox and Thunderbird are now my defaults. Maybe some day other OSS software, such as Open Office, will be good enough to handle the tough jobs.

>>> …like the ones that let you view pages in IE (so I can check hotmail) Itís became my favorite browser.

I check my “spam” accounts on hotmail using Firefox exclusively. It works fine.- by Zinner

Enterprise FF(1:12pm EST Mon May 16 2005)The #1 reason I have seen given for not switching to FF is Microsoft's desktop monopoly. IE is on EVERY Windows desktop (even the servers!), so many execs take the simple choice to support it. This is especially true when you're talking about a company web site.

Unfortunately, those same execs don't seem to understand that making the company site “IE compatible” often breaks it for everthing else and locks them into proprietary code. Then, when someone suggests changing the supported browser, migration and testing become more difficult than they should be. Yes, I am talking mainly about ActiveX. My company's site uses ActiveX and so supports nothing besides IE. We have *lost business* because of this rash decision and thankfully are starting to dump the IE-only code and adhering to standards. - by JRink

microsoft is not happy(1:47pm EST Mon May 16 2005)micro$oft is pushing too – if u go to their msdn library online, it won't show any examples in action unless u use IE even though those examples work FINE in FF and some other browsers.what's next, billy? in longhorn the non-ms software will receive low cpu priority by default? open source is the way of the future, unless of course that euro union passes software pattent law (don't let it happen)in the light of these news, i might even support ibm and buy ibm laptop! - by t0rus

“open source is the way of the future”(1:59pm EST Mon May 16 2005)I would disagree that “open source is the way of the future,” though I would insist a good balance of open source and proprietary is best to create an innovation-rich environment.&#10

&#10 It should be obvious to onlookers that innovation at MS stalled on IE until Firefox finally took away some measureable market share, and MS surprised even itself by announcing that IE 7 will be released ahead of Longhorn.&#10

&#10 As good as Linux can be, they can't get their distributed resources united to release and promote a really useable consumer desktop solution. Apple's OS X gave Linux new hope, but I doubt it will ever happen. A private company with profit motivations is needed for such monumental tasks.&#10

Open standards is the way of the future, at least it should be. This is where open source and proprietary can unite to provide the best products that work for everyone. - by ToeKnee

ToeKnee(2:12pm EST Mon May 16 2005)You have a long wait, Eric J Smith only does stories about Firefox exploits not stories of the good nature of the Fox.

- by Camper X

Who cares(2:14pm EST Mon May 16 2005)what IBM “pushes” – bunch of “trendsetters” they are - by KneeToe

Who cares(2:46pm EST Mon May 16 2005)We all care, there would be no Microsoft without IBM. So yes IBM is a BIG trendsetter.

Firefox & IE(3:13pm EST Mon May 16 2005)I'm not a big fan of IE, it's full of exploits. however, firefox isn't really a better alternative. why? here's my reasons.1) Firefox is slower than both IE and Opera. This is not to say IE is fast, however components of IE is loaded when the OS shell loads. Firefox doesn't have that advantage even when you turn on prefetching. On the other hand, Opera just out performs Firefox by leaps and bounds in term of speed.2) Firefox doesn't support mouse wheel scrolling within iframes.3) Firefox adds scroll bar to certain iframes when there is no need to4) Firefox doesn't like to share cookies between two child frame of the same parent even though the cookie is set to be able to read by all and Firefox setting to allow other sites read cookies5) Firefox has no control over plugin what so ever. yes, it is possible to get virus / spyware / worms etc by using Firefox when you run java / flash etc.6) Firefox has no setting to limit the maximum amount of window that can be spawned. Popups just changed from using simple Javascript to using flash… and popup blocker doesn't do anything about it.7) sharing setting between users is simply out of question. a straight copy and paste breaks the browser when it come to extensions. “install for all users” option is needed as IT managers don't have all the time in the world to set up Firefox for every user on the same workstation / server.8) no automatic optomization after installation.9) Firefox is the only browser with a download manager that result in corrupted downloads for no reason. (where is my SHA checksum?)10) “Save As” redownloads instead of copy from cache11) disk cache is broken (downloads get deleted for no reason when choose open the file, especially with executibles)Mozilla is buggy, but IBM has a goal: to get people stop using ActiveX. and for good reason too. ActiveX gives IE so much protential for being insecure it isn't even funny. msft has a habbit of making insecure popular ware that it is scary. NetBios, ActiveX, ASP, VBS, IIS… it is important to stop lazy people from using them and expose their systems to attacks - by W. XU

ToeKnee(3:36pm EST Mon May 16 2005)I have always and still will disagree with the idea of making linux a destop OS. Why? simple! there is no way of stopping user stupidity other than stripping functionalities. do you obviously believe linux haven't been trying to organize and put up a good desktop OS? the matter of fact is, even when linux has better desktop security, the average users _WILL_ logon as root and run things with super user rights. Result – getting hacked. I believe OS X has the same problem. Mac OS is in no way shape or form better than linux. Just because software is obscure doesn't mean it is secure. Why do you think they canceled the OS X hack-a-thon? - by W. XU

W. XU(4:36pm EST Mon May 16 2005)Why don't you offer your obviously great skills to the Mozilla project to help rectify these horrible faults?

W. XU(4:37pm EST Mon May 16 2005)“I have always and still will disagree with the idea of making linux a destop OS.”&#10 &#10 –Good for you. I respect your opinion. That doesn't mean that people haven't tried.&#10

&#10 “Why do you think they canceled the OS X hack-a-thon?”&#10 &#10 –Because it was an irresponsible thing to do– draw the wrong kind attention to the platform. That's all, and the guy realized it.&#10

&#10 “do you obviously believe linux haven't been trying to organize and put up a good desktop OS?”&#10 &#10 –Who is this “linux?” Yes, there are those who have tried to organize commonalities between the distros, but the fact remains, there are too many Linux distros to make easy desktop functionality a reality. That would entail having general “Linux” apps downloadable and user installable that would run on any Linux. No compiling needed, just point and click downloading and installing. Until that happens, Linux is happily in the company of geeks, not the non-techie operator.&#10

&#10 “the average users _WILL_ logon as root … Result – getting hacked. I believe OS X has the same problem.”&#10 &#10 –and I believe you are mistaken. Root user is not enabled by default in OS X. A relatively techie admin user has to go into the Netinfo Manager and enable root. A regular user would never find it accidentally. Much better idea.&#10 - by ToeKnee

Firefox(4:55pm EST Mon May 16 2005)Greetings! Firefox is easy to use. In switching to it, money was never the main issue. Security, pop-up blocking, speed, ease in blocking all cookies. Saves web surf time, and is easy to setup. I am in command while using this browser, not vice-versa. My mental health is somwhat preserved. Nice not being reminded every other keystroke of the web browser that ruined Netscape. - by Dan

What is the difference between running as Root on a *nix machine and running as administrator on a Windows desktop? There is none except that default security on the *nix box is still better. All that is necessary to prevent people from running as root is a warning message whenever they try to log into the GUI as root that can be disabled in system prefs. If someone logs into the shell as root they should know what the hell they are doing.

Another difference that you're not talking about is the fact that there are 3 different levels of users in OSX whereas there are only 2 levels of users in Linux. OSX has Root, Administrator and User, Linux has Root and User. This needs to be changed, and a GUI version of Fast User Switching also needs to be implemented. The OSX setup is smarter, and by default Root isn't even activated on the system, the top admin has to manually activate it in Netinfo Manager before the account can be used.

I've said it again and again: Linux is the future of x86. While MS keeps screwing up and delaying the release of longhorn again and again OOS just keeps getting better. If any one company is going to release a flagship version of Linux it will be Adobe.

Adobe now owns Macromedia, and they aren't especially fond of Microsoft. Linux poses no real threat to OSX, the Mac is a niche market, and expensive to be (but still awesome). If Adobe created a proprietary GUI based on the postscript model for Linux and stuck it on top of a Red Hat Core, you would have the world's most powerful and versitile graphics workstation.

You would also be able to easily port any existing app that runs on Red Hat, including one of my favorites: VMware (the best virtual machine there is if you ask me).

Adobe could also take the Open Office Source, or purchase StarOffice and revamp it into an incredibly powerful office suite that is included with the OS distribution.

What creative pro wouldn't want to run all Adobe and Macromedia apps on a AMD Opteron Linux wokstation? And how many of them would care that they couldn't use office? You could dual boot or run VMware if you really needed windows apps (and VMware is no slouch, it is actually pretty awesome).

*nix systems are a better design, are more powerful and more secure. They are also second to none when running 3D modeling and Video apps, they make windows look like the toy that it is when it comes to this actually.

- by SFX

Re SFX(5:58pm EST Mon May 16 2005)I remember when I use to be you. It is good to see me again. I think you make a better me so please continue.

Fight the powers that be so that I no longer have to.

Thanks for the freedom. - by Rax

huh thats nuts(6:12pm EST Mon May 16 2005)thats horrible to use firefox in a huge company like ibm. first off you have to remove and than download new version of firefox everytime there are a couple of fixes. employees will not download firefox themselves and install it. In my past experience, alot of employees dont even know where to look and how to proceed with the installation.

ibm better have alot of ppl in the help desk department to oversee the installations. - by bla

Re: bla(7:03pm EST Mon May 16 2005)I guess you are NOT talking from experience.

Install a new version of firefox is much easier and more secure than installing patches for I.E. There are many reports of previous I.E. patches that don't work.

Security firm: IE patch does not work

I also have to run Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer to make sure that the I.E. patches and other security patches are installed properly.

Microsoft has a lousy record of making their security patch work especially for I.E.- by patchcord adams

re:patchcord adams(10:23pm EST Mon May 16 2005)what the hell are you talking about????in my experience where i worked, some employees didnt even know how to turn the computer on. I wasnt talking about which web browser has the best security features or better patching system, i was mainly talking about if the employees are able to install the software themselves. well im sure at ibm the installations will be automated. - by bla

Hmmm(11:26pm EST Mon May 16 2005)Umm, how did this story of IBM using Firefox become an attack on a reporter for this website?

If you don't like it, why don't you just bugger off?

- by Blah

W. XU(3:06am EST Tue May 17 2005)Firefox definately supports mousewheel scrolling within iframes(I have some on my site, I know it does). Also, I'm thinking that you just don't really know how to program, because FF displays iframes perfectly…Also, try disabling the scrollbar instead of whining about it displaying. Also, your so called cookie problem only occurs when you create the cookie in a certain way….I might be wrong by saying so, but I believe IE fails in the same manor. - by I_Heart_Good_Sftware

Of course IBM wants a lot of users, they hired a lot of FF programmers(10:11am EST Tue May 17 2005)IBM on the hunt for Firefox programmers

In the newest indication that Firefox has become mainstream, IBM is trying to hire programmers to adapt the open-source Web browser to work well with Big Blue's server software.

The Firefox work could dovetail with IBM's effort to build its Workplace software, which moves several personal computer applications to a server that users access with a Web browser. IBM is spending $100 million on ensuring Linux computers can tap into Workplace servers.

Among Workplace abilities are instant messaging, word processing and spreadsheet calculations. Today, IBM supports use of Workplace with Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Mozilla–including Linux support with the latter. - by Spread Firefox

funny thing is.(12:57pm EST Wed May 18 2005)IBM needs to PUSH it to their employees… unlike IE. - by lol.

thanks(7:34am EST Sun Jan 08 2006)This is an excellent site thanks for the information! - by andy